Samsung unveils redesigned Series 9 laptops with 13- and 15-inch displays, starting at $1,399
Preview
The Samsung Series 9 debuted at an odd time, before "Ultrabook" was a buzz word, and when a 2.8-pound laptop was novel enough to warrant a $1,649 price tag. A year later, it returns at an even more pivotal moment: Ultrabooks are cropping up by the dozens, and while their specs are similar to what the original Series 9 had to offer, they cost hundreds less. So with that as the backdrop, Samsung just announced a pair of slimmed-down, redesigned Series 9 laptops: a 13-inch remake, priced at $1,399 and up, and a new 15-inch form number that will cost $1,499-plus when the two go on sale next month.
Though consumers are likely to draw comparisons between that 2.5-pound 13-incher and the umpteen other ultraportables hitting the market, Samsung isn't positioning the Series 9 laptops as Ultrabooks, but rather, premium, top-tier machines. Still, for something that's not an Ultrabook, the brothers Series 9 certainly look the part: both pack Core i5 processors, 4GB of RAM, 128GB SSDs, six-hour batteries and backlit keyboards -- Ultrabook-like specs if ever we've heard them. Even the 15-inch model is missing an optical drive, and isn't much larger than the last-gen Series 9.
What separates them from your garden-variety $900 box, though, is a solid unibody aluminum design and a heartbreakingly beautiful display: a 1600 x 900 panel with a matte finish (!) and 400 nits of brightness. But is that worth shelling out an extra few Benjamins? We've just spent weeks playing with an early, pre-production version of the 13-inch model, and while we're going to withhold final judgment until we review a production-grade system, we already have quite a bit to say about the design. So grab a warm beverage, settle into your comfiest chair and meet us past the break for an in-depth preview.
Samsung Series 9 hands-on (2012)
Look and feel
When we first got hands-on with the new Series 9 laptops, we were joined by two of the execs tasked with overhauling their design. What struck us most -- more than any one spec like resolution or thickness -- was how much the design was apparently decided by user feedback. After culling ideas, in part, from the comments on sites like this one, the designers arrived at two overarching conclusions: the shiny stuff had to go, as did superfluous things, like launch buttons. The design needed to be simpler, cleaner, but just as well-made, with the same attention to detail. (It also needed to be thinner and lighter, but this we would have taken for granted.)
All of which should explain the laptop we have before us. The 2012 model does away with the last generation's brushed metal surfaces and reflective paneling around the keyboard in favor of smooth aluminum. The quintet of LED lights that used to sit above the keyboard is now gone, replaced by a single, more discreet power button. The spacious, buttonless trackpad is back, but because the palm rest isn't decked out in contrasting brushed metal, the pad blends in more than it used to. All told, it's sexy, but in a timeless, sensible sort of way.
This year's 13-inch model is also thinner and lighter than its predecessor, at 2.5 pounds and half an inch thick (down from 2.8 with a 0.64-inch-thick chassis). In addition to whittling the body, though, Samsung managed to shrink the footprint by squeezing a 13-inch display into a chassis whose dimensions more closely match a 12-inch system -- not an uncommon tactic among laptop makers. You know what we're going to say, right? It was insanely thin and light last year, and it's more of the same this go 'round. It's just a shame Samsung's new Ultrabooks look so pudgy by comparison.
We'd be remiss if we didn't point out that Samsung traded duraluminum (the stuff used in airplane construction) for a unibody aluminum chassis. More than anything, you might pine for the last generation's soft finish, but at the same time the bottom now feels as solid as the rest of the laptop -- something we took issue with when we reviewed the first-gen version. Despite the change in materials, the build quality seems to have carried over to the second generation, though we heard some creaking when we picked it up by the palm rest. Right now, though, we're inclined to chalk that up to the fact that this is an early build.
Despite all these changes, the new Series 9 still manages to resemble the last generation, mostly because Samsung kept that unique bulb-shaped profile. Unlike the MacBook Air or ASUS Zenbook UX31, which narrow to a razer-thin sliver, the Series 9 stays mostly uniform throughout, save for the area near the hinge where it widens to accommodate some ports. This time around, none of the ports are hidden behind a drop-down door, though the SD slot is tucked on the left underbelly of the laptop, beneath a mushy flap.
Keyboard
We'll be happy to revisit this when we settle down to write a full review, but our first impression of the keyboard is that it's prettier than it is comfortable. The aquamarine backlit emanating from beneath the keys is funky, unexpected and, in this editor's opinion, a crowning element of the design. Many of the major keys (Enter, Backspace, etc.) are amply sized, and even the ones that have been cropped (Tab, Shift) are still eminently usable. Even the arrow keys, though small, are still more widely spaced than the clusters we've seen on other ultraportables' keyboards.
But all of those wise design choices don't quite make up for the fact that these are some seriously shallow keys. Ladies and gentleman, this laptop that celebrates detail where so many other laptops don't still manages to make the same mistake as a rookie $800 Ultrabook. There's not much travel here, and while that shouldn't preclude you from getting work done, you might well suffer a dropped letter or ten. (This is extra annoying when you're using muscle memory to hammer out a password and you can't tell that letters didn't register since every character shows up as an asterix anyway. But we digress.) What's more, the keys on this early build are a bit loud for our tastes, but we'll see if this is as big an issue in a final, production-grade machine.
Display
As with the first-gen Series 9, Samsung used a matte, 400-nit panel with its SuperBright Plus technology, except this year it bumped the resolution from 1366 x 768 to 1600 x 900. Have you guys settled down yet? Good. Because you'll want to hear how stunning it is. A screen like this is enough to turn anyone into a display snob: it offers a lovely blend of wide viewing angles, bright, arresting colors and fine detail, when you need it. Now why can't every laptop display be this beautiful?
Etc.
Since this is an early build, we thought it best not to treat this as a full review, complete with our usual benchmark tests. As it happens, we ran them anyway, just for kicks, and although we won't print those numbers, we'll tell you this: its early PCMark scores best even the ASUS Zenbook UX31, and its 3DMark results come close too. As for real-world performance, we've been enjoying 20-second boot times, which puts this on par with the better ultraportables we've tested lately. We'll run all of these tests again on our finely-tuned review unit, of course, but for now, we feel we have reason to expect good things.
Outlook
As always, we're going to put off judgment until we can test a production-quality system and see how its solid-state drive and six-hour battery fare against the competition. In the meantime, though, that question of competition is a troubling one: what else would you consider in addition to this, if not an Ultrabook, or a MacBook Air? We'd have to agree with Samsung that the design, particularly that stunner of a display, is superior to what you'll get on most $900 machines. But the rated battery life is shorter than what other laptops promise, and we already have a sinking feeling this isn't going to have our favorite keyboard (even if it does have the best backlighting scheme we've ever seen this side of a gaming rig). Given these early concerns, we have to wonder: how many trade-offs can one tolerate before that $1,400 starting price starts to seem unreasonable?
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